The deep midfield duo. Absolutely shocked by how bad those two were. Both are stupidly slow and do not shield the defence. You look at them running to 50:50 balls and just stopping early because they have no chance of making it and then we get left short handed. And even worse, they didn't give any of our creative players the ball enough. We looked dangerous going forward but this didn't happen enough and it cost us the win. Defensively they were shocking. 2 interceptions were made by those two and they were both Toszer. That is embarrassingly little cover for our centre backs who had so much work to do because of it. Aerially even, they cannot be trusted. They only won 3 aerial duels all game. Onuoha won 10. The ball was always going into the middle and they never looked like doing the job. Honestly would play Luongo deeper when Fer is back but until then, play faurlin as the ball player and interception maker and either Doughty or Mackie even as the energy man looking to win the ball back until Sandro gets to full fitness too. The current two have really disappointed me together.
On a more positive note, we have statistically the best player in the championship captaining us. Onuoha got an 8.8 match rating today bringing his average up to 8.0 for the season with no score below 7.0 - an incredible feat for a defender who has conceded 12 goals in 7 games. But as I've said, I wouldn't really put that blame too much on the defence, more so on the midfield duo in front of them who's job it is to shield.
Just as a show of how good Ned was today, he won 10 of his 13 aerial duels today which is a huge amount as it is. He also made 4 interceptions and 1 perfect tackle as well as an incredible last ditch block from behind on Rhodes which kept us in it early on. He really is a leader by example this season.
Another positive for me was Mackie coming on as he turned the game on its head. Have to say that Chery and Luongo weren't great today (Luongo looked scared to shoot) and Mackie was really needed to rejuvenate the energy of that side out there.
On a more positive note, we have statistically the best player in the championship captaining us. Onuoha got an 8.8 match rating today bringing his average up to 8.0 for the season with no score below 7.0 - an incredible feat for a defender who has conceded 12 goals in 7 games. But as I've said, I wouldn't really put that blame too much on the defence, more so on the midfield duo in front of them who's job it is to shield.
Just as a show of how good Ned was today, he won 10 of his 13 aerial duels today which is a huge amount as it is. He also made 4 interceptions and 1 perfect tackle as well as an incredible last ditch block from behind on Rhodes which kept us in it early on. He really is a leader by example this season.
Another positive for me was Mackie coming on as he turned the game on its head. Have to say that Chery and Luongo weren't great today (Luongo looked scared to shoot) and Mackie was really needed to rejuvenate the energy of that side out there.
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